


Against Her Better Judgement

by anubis_k



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-07-29 14:07:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20083468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anubis_k/pseuds/anubis_k
Summary: I don't know what this is or where I'm going with it, or if I will continue at all.But I needed to write and I needed to write about Trevor.Nothing too special about it...just Trevorness.





	1. Route 68

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blaine County seems like the best place to set a crime screenplay on paper, but visiting it for a recce is something else.  
Celia's first jaunt to America takes a sinister turn, when - thanks to her unreliable friends - she unwittingly gets on the wrong side of The Lost bikers.  
On top of it all, the person she hopes is her rescuer seems even more dangerous than her assailants.
> 
> Ch.1 is slightly OC heavy, but Trevor will arrive soon...

Celia outstretched her arms and tilted her face towards the white-hot sun. Her phone informed her it was a scorching 42°C in the Grand Senora Desert. She’d come from the UK and hadn’t experienced heat like it, and to be perfectly honest, she hated it. But she needed to take the whole environment in and just live in the moment. She hadn’t expected San Andreas to be so captivating; the dangerously phallic saguaro cacti, the spiny Joshua trees and the distant mountain ranges made her feel like she was on another planet

Her friend Amy finished taking selfies with a cactus and they walked back towards their rented Enus Huntley. This excursion was not supposed to be a holiday, but a recce for a film she was involved in. She’d written her first screenplay and had many doubts about her abilities. But Amy’s boyfriend Scott was a filmmaker and was convinced that he could make something of it. So, here they were in San Andreas, Celia feeling like an imposter, Scott full of delusions of Vinewood grandeur and Amy, full of concerns about her melting multiple layers of makeup.

Scott drove, Amy took the passenger seat next to him and Celia faffed about with scrunched up printed maps in the back. Scott looked around at her. ‘We should be near Harmony now. I’ve seen it on EyeFind Maps – it’s a little desert town. Trust me, it’s just right for this shoot, I’m telling you.’

‘Yeah, I see it. Oh, here – here’s route 68.’ She scrunched the map back into her bag and looked out of the window.

They passed an expansive, ugly prison on their left, a bank on their right, shops, a low motel, some greasy spoon cafes and an unappealing taco place. Celia felt relieved that people lived and worked out here in this dusty barren location – not as isolated as she imagined but shitty enough to be the backdrop of the crime drama she’d written. After an initial scan of the small linear town, which ended with a trailer park, they turned around and went back the way they’d come and Scott pointed at a gas station on their right.

‘See that old gas station?' he said, pointing. ‘Flick a bit of fake blood about here and there; it’ll look really sinister for the murder scene.’

Amy cut in. ‘Just as long as it ain’t _our_ murder scene. This place is a right shithole. Remember the documentary about the meth heads? Can we make this quick?’

‘No, we can’t make it quick _Amy_,’ snapped Scott.

As Scott pulled into its dusty forecourt, Celia got out to explore, the heat hitting her, a stark contrast from the vehicle’s blissful aircon. ‘It looks shut…I bet some rednecks live out the back and they kill anyone who’s not local....' she examined one of the antiquated petrol pumps, then grinned and nodded decisively. 'This place is _rough_ as arseholes – it’s _perfect_.’ Amy finally stepped out of the vehicle, but immediately reopened the car door and got back inside and locked it, deciding the place was beneath her, leaving Celia and Scott to look around different ends of the gas station, getting photos. She clicked away on her DSLR camera, picturing her characters saying their dialogue there and was so into it, that she didn’t see Scott approaching until popped into shot. She jumped. ‘Fuck! I thought you were a redneck then!’

Scott was mock offended. 'I look a fuck sight better than a redneck.' He struck a pose; he was an incorrigible tart with his 80s hair metal getup and more makeup than Amy. ‘You want to see rednecks? There’s a really weird place near here that I think is kind of…eerie. Why don’t we take a look? It’s like, twenty minutes away. We could find a way of putting that into your story.’

‘I dunno,’ Celia shrugged. ‘What kind of place is it?’

‘It’s like a…it’s basically an abandoned holiday resort. Hard to explain. You need to see it.’

‘There’s no location like that in the script…’ She worried Scott would take over the production. He had a habit of taking someone’s idea and then adding ridiculous plot twists so it had no resemblance to the original idea. He must have guessed what she was thinking.

‘We only have to have a look. I’m not going to suggest you change the whole thing!’

Amy objected; she leaned out of the car window, shaking her head and pouting. ‘It’s way too fucking hot. Why don’t we head back? I’m not feeling this…adventure. Like, what is the crime rate round here? Do they even have police?’

Celia rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not the Wild West, Amy.’ 

Amy pursed her cerise-painted lips and let a slightly farty sound pass out of her mouth. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer cocktails at the beach at sunset instead of looking for the dodgiest places we can find?’

‘That’s kind of the point. I wrote about this kind of shit. Crime and hillbillies and inbreds in the desert! This was the whole point of the trip!’

Scott wrenched the drivers’ side door open in a strop. ‘If I’d have known a beach was all you wanted, I’d have taken you to fucking Southend!’ he snapped. Celia got in behind him and he swung out onto the dusty road. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘There _is_ a beach where I’m taking you…sort of. Let me show you.’

Celia was curious, while Amy looked doubtful. ‘This better not be a wind up, Scott. Is it like an oasis or?’

‘Nah, it’s a beach. Don’t EyeFind it. I want it to be a surprise!’

‘An abandoned holiday resort, you say?’ asked Celia.

‘Shh, let me show you, it’s proper eerie.’

They belted down the Route 68, windows down, Amy’s thick, long wavy brown hair blowing back into Celia’s face. The sun was lowering in the sky now, glowing orange and crimson. Probably caused by the carcinogenic smog from San Andreas’ polluted cities and suffocating the life out of the landscape but it sure looked pretty while doing it. Scott blasted 80s rock on the radio as befitting his clothing style and Celia leaned back on the headrest and enjoyed the view of the orange light falling on the arid scenery outside the window. 

They hadn’t gone far when Amy loudly smacked her lips over the music and moaned about being parched, arching her back in her seat and twisting about like an uncomfortable toddler. As they slowed approaching a junction, they saw a dusty trail coming up on the left, leading to a pub they’d seen on the map earlier – closer inspection revealed it was the Yellow Jack Inn.

Celia snorted. ‘Ok Amy, so Scott says there’s a beach resort and well, there’s the next best thing to cocktails!’

Amy wasn’t particularly amused, especially at the sight of the punters. ‘Oh my god, it’s got to be them meth heads from the documentary.’

Scott laughed. ‘Y’all better redneck-ognise’, he cried, in a bad southern states accent, more fitting for Georgia than anywhere in the west.

‘Shutthefuckup, they’ll hear you!’ hissed Celia from the gap between the two front seats. They tentatively got out and the locals sensed they were different and slowly turned their drunken heads towards them like curious zombies; one of the drunks started approaching, grinning, over-friendly.

‘Fucks sake, men always have to come over, don't they...’ hissed Amy.

‘Howdy folks,’ he said, unexpectedly Southern sounding, not unlike Scott’s fake accent. Celia, Scott and Amy looked like a bunch of middle-class hipsters who’d stumbled into the wrong territory. They couldn’t be more conspicuous if they tried – Scott practically in drag, Amy too for that matter, then there was Celia, resplendent with bright pink hair and khaki camouflage combats, cringing knowing they’d be ordering drinks in English accents just to top it all off.

‘Hey,’ said Scott.

‘You tourists?’

‘Something like that.’ Scott smiled but made it clear he wasn’t in the mood for chatter. Though a small man, he put protective arms around the ladies and led them past the men towards the inn’s glass door.

‘Perv,’ whispered Amy.

‘Well, you will wear fucking cheetah print. You ask for pervs,’ admonished Scott, like the misogynist fuck he is.

‘A woman should be able to wear what she wants without-.’

‘Don’t fight,’ said Celia, through gritted teeth, failing to be subtle.

Inside, things were alright. There was a friendly woman manager, who put them at ease and told the white trash to back off and stop asking impertinent questions. She asked about their trip and England and they actually had a nice conversation and gave them their second drinks on the house. Then a guy approached Amy and instead of recoiling, she sat on the barstool and chatted to him as Scott played a game of pool with an old fat man in a stained vest. The calm before the storm.

‘So, what you guys doing here?’ he asked.

‘Scott’s my boyfriend, he’s a filmmaker.’

‘He’s your boyfriend?’ redneck looked incredulous, probably thought Scott was homosexual because in Blaine County, men simply don’t wear makeup…

‘Yeah, he’s making a film, Celia here wrote it and I’m the…er, assistant. We’re on a recce, he _made_ me come here really, he lied and said this was an actual holiday.’

Scott was possessive and wasn’t particularly keen on Amy talking to other men, even when they were clearly not a threat to him. On top of this, she'd implied she'd been cajoled into coming here and he was irritated. His possessiveness usually manifested when he’d had a few: being diminutive and skinny, he was a lightweight; a lightweight with a big gob and so he thought he’d let the man know he’d exceeded his allotted time limit for talking to ‘his’ woman. As soon as his game of pool was over (he’d lost) he dropped the cue on the table with a clatter and stepped between Amy and the local with a smug smile, before turning to Amy. ‘This is what you get when you date a visionary, Amy. I’m serious about this; a serious filmmaker. Work comes before play. That is how we make careers happen, sweetheart.’

‘Oi! Don’t sweetheart me!’

Celia sipped her coke. _Here we go. _Amy had evidently had too many as well, because she rose to Scott’s bait instead of reprimanding him. _For fuck’s sake._

Amy continued, ‘It’s suddenly not a holiday when I want the beach, but when you decide you want to meet other arty hipsters and hang out in Mirror Park, it is. And by the way, listening to you all creaming over each other’s videos bored me to my core.’

‘Of course it’s boring to people who don’t have a creative bone in their body. Celia understands.’

‘Hey, Scott, don’t bring me into this,’ she winced. The last thing she wanted was to be used as a porn in their row.

‘First you wanted to write with Celia, but I had to help you write, then you wanted to be a fashion designer but I had to help you draw and now what are you? You want to be a fucking travel blogger and sit by pools all day, baking melanoma into yourself?’

Amy gave Scott a Jack Daniels hair wash and there the night ended, just like back home in England. She’d chat to a bloke, he’d get jealous and put her down, she’d lash out, he’d flounce off. Another night soured by watching two incompatible tarts bickering whilst deep in liquor. Celia wished she could teleport herself to LSIA and board the first plane to Heathrow.

‘Go fuck yourself then,’ charmed Scott, and as Celia predicted, he flounced out, squeezing drink out of his backcombed hair, that was now rather flat. That’s when shit kicked off. He really didn’t fit in round these parts. Zebra print skinny jeans, winkle picker boots and a leopard print bandana tied around his stud belt, long, layered hair: he was asking for trouble in a place like this. Hell, it was bad enough in their Little Englander closed-minded hometown. Redneck had been caught in the crossfire of Amy’s drink and thankfully blamed Scott instead of her, so he chased after him and once outside, he grabbed him by the neck. ‘Hey little fag, don’t speak to your lady like that.’

Scott was all mouth and didn’t take kindly to the gay slur so began swearing and hollering and the redneck threw a punch. Scott dodged and ran off, still quick on his feet despite the booze, making his way towards the SUV. Mercifully, redneck didn’t give chase, just laughed and yelled “FAAAG” in their direction. Amy managed to wrestle the keys off of Scott, sensing he was about to drive off. He then stormed off in the direction of Route 68, where he disappeared into the darkness of the desert. ‘Where are you going? Scott! Scott!’ Amy called.

Scott only turned back to slur: ‘There’s a motel. Two. In Harmony…fuck off Amy. Go fuck Hank the hillbilly!’

She then turned to Celia. ‘Wait by the car, let me get him and talk sense into him.’

‘How many did you fucking have? Were you spiked? You only had one drink.’

‘We did shots when you went for a piss.’ Amy admitted, looking ashamed.

‘Where are you going? You ain’t leaving me!’

And just like she did when they were back home, Amy chased him off into the night. And the silly cow had the car keys, so Celia really was stuck. She was incandescent with rage. How dare they down booze in an unfamiliar place and get wasted. Why didn’t she get the car keys off Amy?! She had fucking awful anxiety and there was no fucking way she was going to drive those two soaks back to LS. She’d drive to the motels Scott had mentioned, but no further. She raged to herself: ‘Great, got a nice hotel in LS that cost an arm and a leg, but nooooo, we’re in the arse end of nowhere. Fucking dumb cunts.’

Unable to drive and too scared to run after them into unfamiliar terrain, she decided it would be safer to hide in the yard at the back of the inn, away from the local drunks. For some reason there was a trailer there, with cheap garden furniture next to it. Disgusted with Amy and Scott’s selfish narcissism, she kicked the furniture around as she contemplated her friendship choices. She stopped when she heard the roar of motorbikes with powerful thrumming engines and jogged towards the gap between the fences to see the riders go by. Three leather-clad bikers skidded into the pub forecourt. One pulled up at the back of the building for a piss next to a large propane gas tank beside the inn. It was getting dark now, the sky was purple and she thought if she kept quiet, he wouldn’t see her as she leaned against the corrugated fence. She felt disgusted at him pissing, but couldn’t blame him – the toilet in the Yellow Jack was rank and yellow from years of unwashed urine. Perhaps that’s where the inn had got its name. She snorted accidentally. The biker heard and turned right towards her, dick still out. She was embarrassed and wanted to run, but he moved in the way of the exit gap. He very slowly pushed his dick back into his jeans, unhurriedly pulled up the zip and began to walk towards her. _Fuck_. She needed him to know she meant nothing by her snigger but she ended up laughing out of nervousness. ‘Haha…uh, hey, don’t mind me…please. I wasn’t looking. I’m just…lost.’

‘That’s funny, cos we’re The Lost,’ he said grinning. _Was this some kind of pun she'd missed_? ‘Where you from baby?’

‘’scuse me.’ She tried to get past him. 'I've lost my friends and I need to find them, so see ya.'

‘I’ll help you find them if you suck my cock.’

‘No thanks.’

He grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her against the fence. She felt a cold sweat of fear sweep over her. ‘You wanna see my fucking cock though…cos you were looking at it just a moment ago.’ He dropped one hand and unzipped again.

‘I actually…can’t see your fucking cock. It’s dark!’ she knew shouldn’t be backchatting. ‘So just let me go, _let me go_.’

‘Are you saying my cock is small?’

‘It’s dark, please. I am not interested in your cock.’

‘I think you want it, baby.’ He grabbed her by the throat with one very strong hand and shove-walked her into a the side of a skip at the far end of the yard. She yelped as it hurt her back. Then she felt something cool against her tights. _A blade?_ Just as she felt him go to slash her shorts, she kneed him in the bollocks, and he doubled over in pain, his grip loosening on what was definitely a knife.

Celia experienced what she assumed was a red mist. Given the situation, she didn’t have time to weigh up the pros and cons of grabbing it. She easily took it from his loosened grip and jammed it into his neck. He made a winded gasp and she wrenched it out, seemingly with beast like strength. It had a horrible suction-like feel which she had no time to dwell on before she stabbed it back in once more and again for good measure and then she realised what she was doing and nearly passed out. He dropped to the ground and she lurched forwards and fell onto him. As she scrambled up, she saw there was a lot of blood coming from him – squirting, rather than pooling. She was horrified. Adrenaline was surging through her body and she began to run, almost weightlessly. To where, she didn’t know. The desert was disorientating in the increasing indigo darkness. Her thought process went into hyperdrive. _How would she get away with this? How would she get someone to believe she had done it in self-defence?_ _What would happen to her if she had committed murder in another country? Would she be imprisoned here, then extradited back home? Where were Scott and Amy?_ She began to run, despite feeling like she could pass out; her body felt like it was fifty stone – fifty stone and wading through glue. She was too disorientated to work out which way she’d come from, so stumbled across a road, through some dusty terrain and scrubby bushes, over a dirt track to a main road. _Was it the 68? Where was the prison?_ There was cluster of huge white boulders. She leaned against a large half-buried rock. She paused for a minute, trying not to collapse. As her vision became vignette-like, she realised where she had touched the rock, there was a dark, bloody hand print. Everything was surreal, unreal. She slumped forwards on the rock and slid down it; succumbed to her collapse.

********

Now what? He drove through the desert, wondering just what his purpose was. He had more money than he knew what to do with and no one to spend it on; he wasn’t a materialistic guy anyway. Sure, he could buy the biggest house in Los Santos, start his own cult and live in a mink coat like a big pimp if he wanted to; shit in a gold toilet if he wanted to; buy his own luxury private jet and fly it around the world if he wanted to. But the problem was: he _didn’t_ want to. That midlife crisis shit was for men like Michael. After the craziness of the past few months’ events that had culminated in this vast accruement of sudden wealth, he was left feeling empty inside and somehow lonelier than ever before. Nothing he could do would top what he had achieved; he’d peaked, _what was left_?

No matter how many dodgy offshore accounts he had, he’d always be too messed up to live a normal life of luxury and couldn’t think of a better place to continue his pitiful existence, other than to remain in the barren dusty shitscape that was Sandy Shores, his domain for the best part of nine years. The desert was cool at night and he was on a comedown from meth, he wanted to cut back on it; stop the crazy shit, but how can one, when one owns a meth lab and to get rid of that would be unshackling oneself from the only grounding thing; the only role he had in society – Blaine County’s unlikely drug kingpin. If he quit now, that would be a whole lot of deaths in vain. He sniggered at himself. Who was he trying to kid? He couldn’t give a fuck about those bikers he’d massacred. And the Varrios Los Aztecas? Ortega’s body had probably ended up as shark food in the Pacific, courtesy of the Zancudo River and his gang was all but obliterated. The FIB had turned a blind eye to his multitude of misdemeanours; unbeknownst to him, they’d used him as pest control and when he hadn’t died, they’d used him to do their bidding and when that didn’t kill him either – it was another thing that left him without purpose.

On amphetamine highs, he fancied himself superhuman; deliberately flirting with death at every opportunity and cheating it too, every time, explosions, gunfights, train crashes, you name it, he’d done it and only had a few scars to show for it. Coming down however, from both the drugs and periods of psychosis, he didn’t know who he was or what he was, a husk, a failure, a military pilot that never could be; the object of _love_ that never was. And still, over the cacophony of intrusive and harmful noises in his head, came memories of his mother’s voice: “I bet you never found a girl”. He winced and gripped his leather steering wheel at the cold realisation that he had no one on which to bestow his love.

He turned onto the Route 68 now, needing food; that shitty tacos place was often open all night, he’d have that. Hopefully without a side order of listeria. In his headlights, _he found a girl._

She was blinded by the beams and cowering and she made herself smaller as he got out of his truck and advanced upon her. He saw blood on her shirt. It wasn’t the first time he’d found a woman covered in blood by the side of the road. He guessed he’d have to double back to drop her off at the medical center and he rolled his eyes.

‘Hey sweetheart, what you doin’ down there? Are you lost?’

‘Lost?’ she said. ‘Bikers…’ she wheezed, barely able to breathe.

A flash of rage surged through him. _So those biker cunts are still a problem_. ‘Did the bikers do this?’

She stared up; face pallid in the headlights, too dumbstruck to talk. He noticed the bloody handprints showing up on the white boulder and decided to take action. ‘Hey sweetheart, get in the truck.’ He ordered. He saw her eyes focus as she gave his vehicle a quick glance over. She observed the raggedy old teddy bear stuffed between the bull bars. He gestured towards the truck again but she was hesitant, despite seemingly injured. ‘Come on, it ain’t safe out here. You can have a formal introduction with Mr Raspberry Jam later.’ He grabbed her hands; his dry hands now becoming sticky with the blood that transferred from hers to his. ‘C’mon, there’s a medical centre.’

‘Please no, I’m not hurt.’

_An English accent. What the fuck?_ She pulled away and tried to run, but her chest hurt – she must have breathed in dust; out came a dry, hacking cough.

‘Where you from kid? You here for that shitty hipster music festival that infects this fine county every April?!’ he laughed.

‘I’m lost out here.’ She forced the words out; obviously winded. ‘My friends fucked off. They might be in a motel. On Route 68. I dunno. I don’t know where they fucking are.’

‘Why the fuck are you covered in blood? If it was the bikers I’ll fuckin’ eviscerate them with a spoon and make their guts into tennis racquet strings!’ he couldn’t contain his excitement. He never aspired to be anyone’s hero but if heroism meant a pile of dead bikers, it sounded good to him.

‘A biker attacked me and-’

‘C’mon, hospital, get in, stop fucking around!’ he grabbed her and turned her from side to side in the light of his headlights looking for injury.

‘Get the fuck off! I’m _not_ hurt, it’s not _my_ blood! I just need to find Route 68!’ she screamed in her hoarse voice.

‘Route 68, comin’ up’. She squealed as he heaved her over his shoulders and dumped her heavily in his passenger. She had capitulated to him and gave no resistance as he strapped her in and floored it in the direction she commanded.

‘So, the bikers – which way were they headed? They move in herds!’

‘There were three…now there’s two…’ she wasn’t sure whether to explicitly tell him there were now only two because she had _killed_ one, so left it open to interpretation. She wasn’t entirely sure what the hell was happening. There was palpable excitement in his eyes, that looked black and shiny in the darkness, but she still couldn’t see his face properly, except that he was balding and had quite a short nose in profile.

‘What? Where?’

‘By that pub down there.’ In all this stress, she actually stopped to wonder if Americans said ‘pub’ or just bar. He knew what she meant though and pointed his thumb back at it. ‘The Yellow Jack Inn?’

‘Yeah, this biker attacked me and he had a knife and I kicked him in the nuts, the knife slipped out of his hand and…’ she hesitated, pondered the situation. _Should I tell him I killed one? Is he serious about sorting them out? Yes. Yes I should_. ‘I caught the knife and I shivved him and a lot of blood came out and he’s dead so there’s a body, there’s a body. Oh fuck, there’s a knife! There’s a fucking knife with my handprint! There’s a body and a knife and a car registered in my friend’s name and I don’t know what to do, just get me out of here.’

He seemed unfazed at this blurted information; in fact he looked entertained, as if he found the whole thing comical. ‘We can deal with that!’ he chirped nonchalantly. ‘I’ve disposed of a fair few in my time cupcake, don’tcha worry.’ And before she could say anything else, he spun the car 180 degrees and began driving back.

‘No, no, no.’

‘Yes, yes, yes. I won’t let a pretty girl like you go down for this. It’s dark, we’ll get the body and we’ll hide it.’

‘Just hide ME. Please. Take me back.’

‘Ohhhh no! You had me at biker. Bikers are pests. I like to deal with pests. If you want a parasite exterminated, Trevor Philips is your guy. Let Uncle Trevy handle this.’

‘Who?’

‘Me, sweetheart. I hate those fucking bikers. The Lost MC right? I thought I’d exterminated those cunts last year but they’re like cancer, they fucking metastize and return. Alrighty, here we are. Where’s the stiff?’

‘Round the back. I doubt he’s stiff yet. He’ll be warm and he wasn’t alone!’

He swung the truck around the back of the inn. There was the body. Knife sticking out of it, laying on its back, where it had been previously laying on it's front, pants down, dick out. She wondered if he was still alive, until she saw just how much blood there now was. Trevor grabbed him by his leathers and dragged him back to the truck, leaving a claret trail. He picked him up and lobbed him and the knife in the truck bed, getting a dark smear of blood on his shirt in the process. When it passed in front of the headlights, she saw his shirt looked like it had seen better days – or cleaner murders.

‘We’ll chuck this in the quarry not far from here. Unless you want to sit with me and watch it get made into dog meat under a freight train? Or we could just about drive to LS in time to inconspicuously deliver it to the Chinese meatpacking factory before sunrise. Your choice, gorgeous!’

_How was he so fucking cheery? _She shook her head. ‘What’s the quickest way, just so I can find my friends and get the hell out of this place? Please help me! I’m stranded and I’m from fucking England and I don’t know what to do!’

‘My mum came from England.’ Trevor said, whimsically with a smile._ As if she gave a fuck!_ Just as they hit the road, there was a roar of souped-up motorbikes and fuck…it was the other two and one more – they’d obviously been looking for the murderer. They began hurling abuse at this Trevor fella by name. He was clearly quite the celebrity in these parts.

‘Duck,’ he yelled at her and he unceremoniously shoved her down into the footwell. She balled herself up as tightly as she could as deafening shots rang out around them. ‘That’s it, that’s all of ‘em’ said Trevor. She got up, peered over the side of the truck. Three bikes still hummed on the ground, engines and headlights on, each had a dead and bleeding biker next to them, gore all around. Trevor got out, and heaved them all up into the truck bed, got in, slammed the door, jammed that pedal down so hard in reverse, she fell back down into the footwell and hit the back of her head on the dashboard and they carried on their merry way. Now the problem was precisely three times worse – she was sitting in a truck with half a fucking chapter of bikers in the back and she seemed to have become acquainted with a blood-soaked, gunslinging maniac. _Who was this Trevor guy and what the fuck now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note before you read the next chapter: I'm writing in a weird order - I wrote the last chapter first. So there's a gap between chapter 1 & 2 that I will fill in this week.   
An awkward way of doing it, yes, but I wanted to put some material out, just to get it out of the way! 
> 
> The middle chapter will be ready soon!


	2. Route 68

‘You want a lift Trev?’

‘Nah, nah, it’s too far for you.’ He turned away and began to walk under the sign for Arthur’s Pass Trails, likely taking the scenic route through Baytree Canyon back to the dry desert. Celia wondered how he was going to get home on such a long journey. He’d probably nick some poor bastard’s bike or carjack someone, because that’s how he rolled from what she’d observed so far. Against her better judgement, she called out after him. ‘Hey, stay in touch, alright? Maybe we can meet up again soon?’ she winced at herself saying it. He could be a bit pervy at times and she didn’t want him to think she was a keeno, especially as he kept joking that she wanted him. However, she couldn’t help but feel hurt when he spun to face her, then stepped backwards, putting his hands up defensively.

‘Look sweetheart, I…I’m not the kind of guy you want as a friend.’

She felt embarrassed now. _Imagine being rejected by someone just for wanting friendship. _‘What? Wh- don’t be like that,’ she almost snapped, which she tended to do when she felt stupid. Trevor shook his head and stepped back further.

‘Trust me, there’s no point getting close, alright?’

‘But I _like_ you,’ she said resolutely; _honestly_. She suddenly didn’t care if he assumed she was attracted to him. She was already on the humiliation train; too late to get off now.

‘I’m so fucked up on a fundamental level that I can never live a normal life okay? And you can’t fix me, therapists can’t fix me, NO ONE can fix me, don’t even try it.’

‘I never said I wanted to fix you-’, she said, though she did feel he needed fixing. Who wouldn’t?

He screwed up his face, shut his eyes tight as he cut in. ‘People always think they can mould me into something I can’t be!’

‘That’s not what…oh for fuck’s sake. Fine, you don’t want to be friends, I get it. But I know you’re not all bad. No one is. You’ve always – well, _mostly_ been good to me. I like your company. You seemed to like mine, but obviously not. Whatever. Push me away; whatever.’

‘I’m a filthy, fucked up piece of shit!’ came his next outburst.

She thought he was talking about the murders. ‘Yeah, but your fucked-up-ness saved my skin and I saw glimpses of someone else, a _nice Trevor_ and it’s that part I want to see more of. When you’re not high, you’re an alright sort of guy. Misunderstood I ’spose.’ She sighed and went to walk off. She wasn’t prepared to argue with him and this was embarrassing.

‘An “alright sort of guy” right? So, what if I told you, that when I was a teenager, my mother touched me up and I liked it? You still wanna associate yourself with me now?’

She spun around to face him, standing there with his arms outstretched outwards, almost in a t-pose. He took yet another step backwards.

‘Well, that shit’s not your fault; you were groomed. That’s on her, not you.’ She never missed a beat; no mouth falling open in shock, no “what?”, no recoiling. ‘You should never blame yourself for things your parents did to you. Totally out of your control…’

He seemed taken aback that she withstood that information bomb and simply carried on as if she hadn’t been at all surprised with this disturbing knowledge. She saw, in those amaretto eyes of his, the betrayal of his thoughts – originally aggressively defensive, their expression gave way to a mixture of relief and defeat. He dropped his arms to his side, but still slowly backed away, still looking at her. He breathed heavily and sharply from his open mouth. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, looked her up and down deliberately, as if he was taking the measure of her for the first time. Celia rolled her eyes.

‘I want to be friends and the offer’s there.’

There was silence as Trevor stood there blinking. He had a strange childlike vulnerability to him in that moment, as if he wanted to cry because someone had expressed compassion for him; had made his most disturbing secret feel like it wasn’t his fault. He was stupefied by it and she didn’t know what else to do so she shrugged, turned around and carried on walking off towards the observatory and the city. _His choice._


End file.
